India Moves Towards Stronger Law to Protect Women

Altaf Qadri/Associated Press A demonstration near the Parliament House in New Delhi on Feb. 21 against a new sexual violence legislation.

India’s lower house of Parliament passed a bill Tuesday intended to better protect women from sex crimes, widely hailed as a step forward in India’s attempt to deter sexual offenders after the fatal gang rape of a young woman in Delhi in December sparked a nationwide movement to improve women’s security.

“We feel that when such serious and heinous crimes start occurring with alarming regularity, the time has come to send a loud and clear deterrent signal to all potential criminals that society will no longer tolerate such aberrant behavior,” Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said when introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha, the lower house. The bill would “plug loopholes” in the justice system, Mr. Shinde said.

The bill establishes significantly tougher punishments for sexual offenses, including the death penalty in cases where a rape leaves the victim dead or in a “persistent vegetative state.”  It also creates several new sexual offenses, such as stalking, voyeurism and sexual harassment; makes the throwing of acid on women a specific criminal offense; and prescribes punishment for police officers who fail to file initial reports when women come forward with a complaint.

The bill now goes to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, where the government hopes it will pass before Friday, when Parliament goes on a monthlong break. If passed, the bill will replace an ordinance that was passed hurriedly by the government in February, which was widely criticized for taking a piecemeal approach to women’s rights and is set to expire on April 4.

In the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, debate over the bill lasted more than six hours, but fewer than 200 of the 540 members were present when it was brought to a vote.

Parliamentarians were divided on several issues, chiefly whether the age of consent for sex should be 16 or 18. The government has flip-flopped on this question; an ordinance passed in February raised the age of consent to 18, but an early draft of the bill now being considered would have lowered it to 16 again. That provision was removed after a meeting of all major political parties on Monday, at which the Bharatiya Janata Party and others objected to lowering the age of consent.

During the debate, Sandeep Dikshit of the Congress party asked, “Should we criminalize consensual physical relations between a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl”  But several lawmakers argued that reducing the age of consent to 16 would encourage teenage sex and send a signal at odds with the cultural traditions of India, where the legal age for marriage is 18.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a member of the Shiromani Akali Dal, asked what the consequences of lowering of the age of consent would be “when there is no sex education in schools and no education on contraception.” Such a move would lead to a rise  in teenage pregnancies and abortions, Ms. Badal said.

Several parliamentarians blamed a host of cultural factors for a  perceived increase in sex crimes, from the influence of Western culture to television advertisements for condoms and provocative films. “It’s natural,” said Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United), to feel titillated when watching what are called “item songs,” or song and dance numbers common in Bollywood.

Leaders from several regional parties, like the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (United), objected to the bill’s definitions of stalking and voyeurism, saying they would lead to a rush of false cases.  Female parliamentarians responded that their colleagues were expressing a mistrust of women.

“Which law has never been misused” asked Priya Dutt of the Congress party. “But you make laws for the benefit of the majority of the people.”

Other lawmakers argued that the provisions on stalking were not strong enough. Sushma Swaraj of the B.J.P. argued that men arrested on suspicion of stalking even for the first time should not be automatically eligible for release on bail.

Most legislators seemed to agree on one thing: that while India does have laws in place to protect women and girls, such as laws against domestic violence and child marriage, implementation remains poor.

“What is the strategy for implementation of the bill” asked Sumitra Mahajan of the B.J.P. “This train has 10 compartments lined up but no engine.”